Credit Crunch Takes Its Toll

The fuel behind the skyrocketing commercial real-estate prices of the past three years -- cheap debt and easy lending terms -- is running low. As a result, high-risk buyers might be left behind and the pace of real-estate companies going private might slow.

Low-cost loans with lenient terms have propelled the commercial-real-estate market to what many feared was an unsustainable level. The boom was propped up by the commercial-mortgage-backed securities markets, which allowed banks to issue mortgages, pool them and sell...